Thorns Unseen
by CrypticMoonFang
Summary: Dipper never knew his sister led a secret life until he saw the bruises... Companion to A Rose Without Petals; set in Dipper's POV.
1. Chapter 1

~Chapter 1~

**(Dipper's POV)**

I sat back in my chair and continued browsing through the journal, wondering all sorts of things about it. My biggest concern was who the author was. It didn't seem like any ordinary mystery... I was seriously stumped on that.

I had almost gotten to the point of true frustration when Mabel walked in, apparently thinking I didn't see her.

I waved to her. "Hey, Mabel. Where were you?"

It _was_ getting a little late, now that my head was out of the journal.

"I was at Josh's," she answered. "We were playing games and I lost track of time."

I almost laughed, imagining her jumping up in victory as she beat her boyfriend, Josh, at whatever game they had been playing. And poor Josh would just have to deal with it.

"Oh, alright. Don't stay too long next time, you had me worried."

It wasn't really a lie. As determined as I was to decode this journal and find out all the mysteries of Gravity Falls, I also kept track of Mabel. I liked to know where she was just in case I needed to find her. Sure, she was safe with Josh, but I was a bit protective of her. It frustrated her before and she nagged me about following her around or something. I wouldn't, but I could see why she thought I would.

"Hey, is something wrong?" I asked, noticing how unusually quiet she was being.

"Huh?"

"You've been kind of quiet lately," I said. "Is something bothering you?"

"No, I'm fine."

"You sure?"

She nodded in response.

But just in case, "You know you can talk to me, right?"

She looked away and I swore I saw tears in her eyes. It gave me all the answer I needed.

"Is it Josh?"

She didn't respond.

I didn't want to pressure her too much. All relationships had their ups and downs, and Mabel's relationship with Josh was no exception. In fact, their relationship was one of the best I'd ever seen.

I chuckled lightheartedly and said, "Don't worry, Mabel. You know how Josh is, he'll make things right again."

For a moment I thought I saw even more distress in her, but she seemed pretty calm as she walked away to go to bed. It was late so I didn't worry about dinner. She probably ate at Josh's house. Maybe they went out on a date to a restaurant. Either way, Josh was such an amazing guy and I couldn't see one other person more fit for my sister. I knew for a fact that she was safe with him around.

**A/N**

**This is the companion to A Rose Without Petals. It will be entirely in Dipper's POV. That said, more action is currently happening with Mabel than Dipper, so the first few chapters will probably be shorter. As the story moves on though, they'll grow longer.**

**ARWP will have more angst than this. Anyway, what do you think so far?**


	2. Chapter 2

~Chapter 2~

**(Dipper's POV)**

I stretched out on the chair after a long day of failure. In all truthfulness I felt like picking up the nearest object and throwing it at something. On top of failing at finding the author, I also gained new clues as to who this "He" that the journal spoke of might be. Why was the author trying to hide it from "him"? Who was "He"? Why was the author so adamant about hiding it from "him" in the journal? First the page about trusting no one and then this?!

I kicked the leg of the chair in frustration. It seemed like every time I got a new clue about anything, it brought up a thousand questions along with it. But I was starting to think the author was still somewhere in Gravity Falls... If he was, then I could find him and ask him all the questions I'd been _dying_ to know the answers to.

I also had some questions for Mabel, the main and foremost one being about her relationship. They seemed so perfect for each other. I hoped the guy would marry her one day; she deserved someone like him. It was better than marrying a merman...

I really didn't have the right to put down Mermando in any way though. He wasn't half bad, but I thought Josh was better for Mabel than Mermando.

I decided it was best just to heat up some leftovers and cool off while I ate. Mabel would be back any time now and then I would have at least _one_ of my questions answered. BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY THE JOURNAL HATED ME!

I turned around just in time to see Mabel. She looked exhausted and completely worn out. It was the only thing I found strange about her now. Every time she came back she had to force herself to look energetic, but it was slowly failing and her exhaustion became all the more obvious. Nobody had told her about it, especially since it might be something she didn't want to talk about. We all just pretended to be fooled and it worked; she suspected absolutely nothing. This was one of my questions about her—why did she always come back so tired? It was also a question I couldn't answer on my own, yet one that I didn't want to ask Mabel.

"Oh, hey, Mabel," I said. "How did everything go with Josh?"

She stood there with a blank stare on her face, like she had completely zoned out on me. I assumed it was because she was so tired but a small something kept nagging at me. I couldn't quite identify what it was—it could've been telling me something was wrong but if it was, I was ignoring it. I was sure it was nothing more than being curious about Mabel's deception. It was odd even for Mabel to act this way and think she was doing an excellent job hiding it.

But surely she had to realize that she just couldn't keep up with herself. She had to see that she was trying to muster the energy that just wasn't there. I would rather her act the way she was feeling instead of hiding it and making herself feel even worse. She was running on empty and everybody noticed. I really wished she would just talk about it, tell us what was going on. We could help.

But that was entirely up to her.

"Okay," she finally said.

I chose to believe it for her sake and sat down to eat.

"That's good. Are you guys..." I let my voice trail off as I meshed my fingers together. "You know, together again?"

She nodded and came over to sit beside me.

I hated seeing her this way. Three years ago we couldn't get her to shut up but now we could barely get her to talk. What happened? I wanted her to jabber on about everything again. It proved she was still herself. But now she just...wasn't. Josh probably knew something about this. He was probably helping her through it right now.

"I'm glad, Josh is probably the only guy I would want you dating," I said, hoping that my approval of her boyfriend would help her out at least a little bit.

"Why?" she mumbled.

"Why not? He's a really great person. Plus, you're my sister, you deserve someone like him," I replied.

I saw a small flicker of emotion in her eyes, one that I couldn't place my finger on. She went back into a short daze again, completely silent. It was short though, and apparently she didn't feel much like eating because she got up and headed off for bed.

I followed her, halfway expecting her to come right back down.

Instead, I entered our room to find her flopped tiredly on her bed. Even stranger, she was on her stomach... Mabel never slept on her stomach... Her face was slightly twisted, like she was in some kind of pain. I assumed it was just that time of month again; sometimes she had terrible pains and would squirm and wiggle in weird positions trying to help relieve it. Sometimes her cramps were so bad she threw up over the pain, which made it pointless to give her any kind of medicine or drink. She couldn't keep down any food during that time so she went hungry, thirsty, and in more pain than I, as a boy, could imagine. I hated seeing her like that but thankfully it only lasted for a few hours to half a day.

"Hey, are you feeling okay? You didn't eat any dinner," I said.

"I'm just really tired. Josh and I rode our bikes for a long time."

Maybe she'd already been cramping and the exercise only worsened it.

"Oh. Well, are you sure you don't want anything to eat?" Because I wanted her to get _something_ in her system in case she started throwing up.

"I'm fine. I just want to rest right now."

I could tell she was exhausted but...

"I think you should eat at least a little something. It's not healthy to skip meals," I said.

"Go away, Dipper."

I sighed and turned to leave, muttering back to her under my breath, "I was just trying to be nice..."

As I closed the door back, I could've sworn I heard her breath hitch just slightly. I was right, it was that time of month.

**A/N**

**Longer chapter! Well, what do you think? Anyone who's read A Rose Without Petals knows what's going on but nobody knew what Dipper was thinking or doing since ARWP focuses on Mabel. ;) The action with Dipper will increase, don't worry, but for now he's just going about his day. **

**And remember that Josh doesn't show his true colors around Dipper, so yes, Dipper thinks highly of Josh.**

***Sorry for the slow update... Viruses, gotta love 'em. My internet wouldn't work for the longest of times. Anyway I do plan to update faster from now on (so long as there are no more viruses), and ARWP won't be updated quite yet because this story is doing a bit of catchup. I am, however, writing the next chapter AS I UPDATE THIS.**


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